The Cold, Cold Ground

name for yourself. You’re ambitious, I like that. But you can’t go bandying words like ‘serial killer’ around for all and sundry. The shit’s hitting the fan everywhere. You cannae throw a brick out there without clobbering a journalist. They’re all looking for an angle, aren’t they? And believe me, I know Carrick, so I do. Serial killers. Come off it. We don’t do that in these parts. Ok?”
    “If you say so, sir.”
    He smiled in a conciliatory manner. “And besides, for a serial killer you need more than one victim, don’t you?”
    “Our guy in the Barn Field and then the hand from the other bloke. That’s two.”
    Brennan passed the musical score back across the table. He took a sip of cold coffee from a mug on his desk. “Who else have you told about this theory of yours?”
    “McCrabban and Sergeant McCallister. I’ll have to tell Matty too.”
    “Good. Nobody else. What’s the status of your investigation?”
    “We might get a break soon, sir. Now we have two sets of fingerprints working their way through the channels.”
    He nodded and put his glasses back on. I could see that I was being dismissed. I got to my feet. “Do your job, do it well and do it quietly,” Brennan muttered, examining the Daily Mail again.
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Sean, one more thing.”
    “Yes, sir?”
    “‘Idle fellow but he gives us a buzz.’ Thirteen across. Five letters.”
    I thought for a second. “Drone, sir?”
    “Drone? Drone, oh yes. Ok, you may go.”
    I exited. It was late and the place was emptying out.
    I borrowed a couple of ciggies from someone’s table and headed out onto the fire escape to think.
    There was trouble up in Belfast again. Potassium nitrate flares falling through the darkening sky. A Gazelle helicopter flying low over the lough water. Little kids walking past the police station showing each other the best technique for lobbing Molotov cocktails over the fence. Jesus, what a nightmare.
    This was a city crucified under its own blitz.
    This was a city poisoning its own wells, salting its own fields, digging its own grave …

3: A DIFFERENT MUSIC
    I smoked the fags and when the rain came I climbed back inside, locked the evidence in the CID room and drove home.
    The cows were gone. The cow shit had been scraped up and bagged by entrepreneurs. Mrs Campbell told me all about the great bovine escape and how Arthur’s prized roses had been ruined and how he would be furious when he got back from the North Sea, which wouldn’t, she added, be for two more long, lonely weeks.
    I went into the kitchen and made myself a pint-glass vodka gimlet. I threw frozen chips in the deep fat fryer and dumped a can of beans in a pot. I fried two eggs and ate them with the chips and beans.
    At seven o’clock I shaved and changed into a shirt, my black jeans, leather jacket and DM shoes. I put on a black leather waistcoat. It looked good but there was a slight Han Solo vibe so I hung it back in the cupboard.
    I went out. A stray dog began walking beside me. Black lab. Cheerful looking character. Victoria Estate had dozens of stray dogs and cats, fed, and sometimes adopted, by the local children.
    I was halfway along Barn Road when a guy ran out of his house wearing a white singlet and waving a ten-pound sledgehammer.
    “Now you’re going to get it!” he screamed at me. “You’re really going to get it!”
    “For what?”
    “Your dog just took a dump against my gate. I finally caught you, you dirty bastard! You and your dirty dog. You are going topay, mate! Oh yes!”
    “That’s not my dog,” I said.
    His consternation and disappointment knew no bounds. I could sympathize: there is nothing, nothing in this world more deflating than the realization that the lumping villain who has been tormenting you is not going to get an arse-kicking after all.
    He asked me if I was sure it was not my dog but I just kept walking.
    I went by a DeLorean broken down on the Scotch Quarter, gull wings askew, steam coming from its rear engine, which did not bode well.
    The Dobbins was deserted and I got a seat next to the massive sixteenth-century fireplace. I ordered a Guinness, took out my notebook and looked over my bullet points from the day. Twelve pages of notes. Lots of questions marks and exclamation points. This was a case already spiralling out of control.
    I nursed my pint until 9.30.
    She didn’t show.
    “The hell with it!” I said, got up and began walking home along West Street.
    “Sergeant